Outside Your Room
by Rebecca Parker
Summary: Dawn is fixated on Willow and Tara's relationship.


TITLE: Outside Your Door (1/1)  
  
AUTHOR: Rebecca Parker  
  
EMAIL: rebecca@bizarroland.com  
  
RATING: PG-13 (for sexual references)  
  
PAIRING: T/W, T/Da  
  
SUMMARY: Dawn's been fixated on Tara and Willow  
  
SPOILERS: Up to "Smashed," I suppose.  
  
FEEDBACK: Yes please!  
  
DISCLAIMER: Joss and Mutant Enemy own all.  
  
DISTRIBUTION: The usual suspects. Anyone else, please ask first.  
  
DEDICATION: Purely for Ally. Enjoy sweetie, and have a Happy Birthday!  
  
  
  
Joyce used to dance around the topic of Tara and Willow whenever Dawn brought it up. She'd stutter and stammer and throw around words like "sweet" and "private" before quickly changing the subject.  
  
Dawn pretended not to notice how flustered it made her mother, and Joyce didn't notice, or at least pretended not to notice, how often Dawn brought the subject up.  
  
Before she'd burnt her diaries the night of Buffy's birthday, she would write about the two of them all the time. Pages were filled wondering what it felt like to kiss a girl, paragraphs talking about how cute the two of them looked together. For days on end, she would sometimes talk about nothing but Willow and Tara and, considering her inferiority complexes about Buffy at the time, that was a rare feat.  
  
When Joyce died, and things with Glory escalated, the time for questions and answers about the girls' relationship came to an end. Dawn was, when not running for her life or tied and cut hundreds of feet above the ground, left to wonder to herself about what the two girls did at night.  
  
When Buffy died, and Tara and Willow moved into Joyce's bedroom next to her own, she grew more and more curious. Sometimes, lying in bed at night, she thought she could hear the two of them doing...something. She had an idea what- she was 15, after all, and not entirely clueless- but she was still more curious than anything.  
  
After the first few nights of muffled sounds drifting down the hallway, she couldn't help herself and she would creep out of bed, tiptoeing quietly so they wouldn't hear her.  
  
They were smart and kept the door locked, and Dawn wasn't desperate enough to peek in the keyhole or lie down on the floor and try to see under the crack, but she did softly press her ear against the door, and then- everything became clearer.  
  
She could hear the moans, and the whimpers. She could hear the sheets crumpling, and the bodies moving. She would close her eyes and imagine that she could see it all, and she would press her hand against the door as if, somehow, she could be a part of it.  
  
Once it was over, she would hurry back to her room, forgetting to be quiet, and she would stay up most of the night worrying that they had heard her. Most nights, they stayed behind those closed doors, but one night, Tara came to check in on her, and she would pretend to be asleep. She figured that Tara had bought it...  
  
++++  
  
"You used to listen to us, didn't you?" Tara asked her, and Dawn slumped down in her seat, taking a long sip of her chocolate malt.  
  
"What?" she asked, laughing. "Listen to who?"  
  
"Willow and I," Tara said, her eyes fixed on Dawn. "At night. When Buffy was gone."  
  
"Listen to you do what?" Dawn asked innocently, but she could tell that Tara wasn't buying her act. "Well..." she said, and she looked down, anxious to hide the blush that had crept over her face.  
  
"That wasn't right," Tara said, but her voice wasn't scolding. She looked up at Tara, and Tara smiled shyly. "That was p-private," she said, and her stutter betrayed the cool facade she put up.  
  
"Private," Dawn repeated, and she her mother's words came back to her. "They're very sweet together, honey. But it's private. I can't talk about it."  
  
"Yes," Tara said, nodding. "You shouldn't have listened."  
  
"I couldn't help it some nights," Dawn said, laughing. She noticed the uncomfortable look on Tara's face, and the smile faded. "I'm sorry."  
  
"It's OK," Tara said, reaching over and patting Dawn's hand. "It's just strange. You're so young."  
  
Dawn rolled her eyes. "I'm 15. I'm going to be 16 in a few months. I'm not THAT young, Tara. Just a few years younger than you."  
  
"Yes. I'm sorry," Tara apologized. "I didn't mean to belittle you for your age. It's just that I feel responsible for you."  
  
Dawn folded her arms and sighed. "Pretty much the only person who acts on that feeling lately." She grabbed her drink and took another long sip, trying not to notice the sad look that Tara was giving her. "Whatever," she said when she finished drinking and she went back to folding her arms. She didn't want to think about this; she wanted to just enjoy her Tara-time, as rare as it was lately with finals consuming most of the girl's time.  
  
"Dawn," Tara said finally, and she lowered her head, fidgeting. "I meant what I said before. I'll always be here for you."  
  
"Yeah," Dawn said, crouching even lower in her seat. "Listen, I didn't say that so you could make me feel better."  
  
"I know you didn't," Tara said softly and she smiled at Dawn, who sat back up and grabbed for a french fry from the plate in front of her. "Dawn, can I ask you a strange question."  
  
"Sure," Dawn said, taking a bite and looking around the table for the ketchup. "What's the what?"  
  
"It's kind of personal," Tara said, her voice quiet, and Dawn started to become uncomfortable.  
  
"Um, OK. What is it?" Dawn asked, shifting nervously in her seat as she filled her mouth with a handful of french fries.  
  
"Do you like girls?" Tara asked, and Dawn could tell that the question was as awkward for Tara to ask as it was for Dawn to answer. "I mean, in the romantic sense."  
  
"Why?" Dawn asked, her voice shaking. "I mean, because I would listen?"  
  
"Y-yes," Tara said, nodding. "I was lucky. My mother would talk to me about things like this. I didn't have to go through it alone, and -"  
  
"And I have no one," Dawn finished for her.  
  
Tara frowned and tilted her head to the side. "That's not what I meant."  
  
"Isn't it?" Dawn asked, sighing.  
  
"No. You have me," Tara corrected her. "Dawn, you can talk to me about this if you want to."  
  
"I know," Dawn said, suddenly very anxious for her Tara-time to be over. It was one thing to have feelings for a girl, but it was another to have feelings for someone who just likened herself to being a mother figure. "I don't know," Dawn said, shrugging. "Maybe. I don't know," she said again.  
  
"It's OK," Tara said, patting her hand again, but Dawn moved it quickly away. "It takes time to figure these things out sometimes."  
  
"I guess," Dawn agreed. She ate the last of her french fries, and Tara ate the last few bites of her salad in silence. Dawn slid down in her seat again, and tried to think of something to say.  
  
"So are we going to go see 'Lord of the Rings' next week?" Tara finally said, and Dawn was grateful for the change of subject, especially to something neutral and harmless like movies.  
  
"Sure," Dawn said, sitting up again and smiling. "I'm all about Frodo."  
  
"OK," Tara said, nodding. She fished a twenty-dollar bill out of her purse and stood up, taking the check. "I'll be right back," she said. "I'm just going to go pay."  
  
"OK," Dawn said, and she watched Tara as she moved towards the cashier at the front of the restaurant. Dawn leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and her chin on the palm of her hands.  
  
Things were easier somehow when she was outside her bedroom door listening; things had been clearer to her then.  
  
But now, only Willow was behind the door and, even if Amy was behind it with her, she found her fascination with listening was gone.  
  
As she watched Tara chat with the girl behind the register, she came to the sad realization that she would never be able to talk to Tara about this- not as long as she had the feelings which, she realized, she had possessed for quite a long time.  
  
++++  
  
Before her mother had died, Dawn had asked her if she thought it was wrong that Tara and Willow were girlfriends.  
  
They had never talked so openly about the relationship before, and Dawn could tell that Joyce was taken aback. Her mother had been flustered and taken a few moments to respond.  
  
"Of course not, honey," she had answered. "They love each other. What could be wrong with that?"  
  
Dawn didn't think anything had been wrong with it, and they had ended the conversation there.  
  
But Dawn walked away feeling a bit more confident and a bit more assured, even though, she now realized, she wasn't quite sure why at the time.  
  
THE END... 


End file.
